bass

by paul, on 08.25.2007

I've been listening a lot to this horace silver album, which is really interesting because most of it is a trio date with mr. silver on piano, art blakey on drums and 3 different bassists: gene ramey, curly russell and percy heath. each bassist plays on 4 different tunes, and it's a great way to hear the subtleties of each player in the same context (i.e. piano and drums) and how they change the feel/sound of the group.

I've been listening a lot more intently to bassists, drummers and the way they interact ever since I started reading do the math, ethan iverson's excellent blog. he's had excellent interviews with ron carter and stanley crouch where they talk about the finer points of rhythm sections, and also had a great feature piece where he got a lot of modern players to talk about their favorite bass records.